What'd I Say

© Thomas Wilson Shawcross 11 Jun 2006

Et tout d’un coup le souvenir m’est apparu. Ce gout cétait celui du petit morceau de madeleine que le dimanche matin … Combray . . . ma tante Léonie m’offrait aprés l’avoir tremp‚ dans son infusion de thé ou de tilleul

Du cote de chez Swann (Swann’s Way, 1913) vol. 1, p. 61 by Marcel Proust

Translation: And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray . . . my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane.

In his novel A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, which has been translated as Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust remembers how a host of childhood memories were brought back to him as he was drinking tea with his mother and tasted a small sweet cake such as he had during his childhood in Combray.

I had a similar experience today, which took me back to a Ray Charles concert I had attended in St. Louis in 1962.

This morning, I arose with the older and more sluggish larks and decided to see if the World Cup was being televised. The TV came on showing the 2004 movie Ray, a biopic starring Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles.

My son Michael and I had seen this film in a movie theater, and I remembered having the decidedly odd sensation of crossing the line between Art and Reality when the movie recreated a real life scene from Ray’s 1962 appearance in St. Louis. In the movie scene,the stage manager turned down the house lights and put a spotlight on Ray, in order to quiet an audience that wanted Ray to play one of his familiar hits instead of his new “country” song. The lighting trick worked, and the movie camera panned out from Ray (Jamie) to show the audience reaction.

As the camera panned up to the balcony seating area at Kiel Auditorium, suddenly, it became 1962 for me again. I looked to see if I could see Carol Moeser and myself sitting there! When I couldn’t spot us there, I snapped back and remembered that this was not a documentary film, it was a recreation, so of course I was not going to see myself in the Ray movie. Still, that was a weird feeling.

I do remember the house lights going down and the spotlight being put on Ray. I do not remember the audience grumbling prior to that (as depicted in the movie), but maybe that happened. My memory of that evening is a bit spotty, because my mind had been boggled on the ride to the show. Carol had sat on my lap during the ride to Kiel! I do not recall who else went with us that night, I just remember there were two boys and two girls to sit in the backseat, and Carol’s mom turning around from the front seat and suggesting that the girls sit on the boys laps. What a wonderful woman Carol’s mom was! It was the first time a girl had ever sat on my lap, so you can understand why my memories of the peripheral events (such as who else was with us in the car) is a bit spotty.

It was also the first time I had attended a live entertainment performance, unless you count the Cub Scout parades I had participated in at the St. Louis Arena (I don’t think those count, although I do have fond memories of being in show business, which was how I looked at it at the time).

But, I digress. I remember that when Carol invited me to the show, I was already familiar with Ray Charles. I even had one of his 45’s, Hit the Road Jack, which I had acquired in October, 1961, when Uncle Jack was shot. Uncle Jack had operated a jukebox business, and after he died Aunt Dorto let Jim and me have any records we wanted. We could choose from all of the popular records of October, 1961. If there is ever a Jeopardy category called “Hits of October, 1961” I think I would win, as I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert on the top tunes of Oct 1961. So far, I have not figured out how to make this pay off, but still I think of Uncle Jack whenever I hear Hit the Road Jack.

As I wrote this preceding sentence, I remembered that I had never been able to figure out one of the lines sung by one of the Raelettes in that song, which sounded to me like:

“You ain’t got no money, you just an old hood.”

So, I looked it up just now! Here are the complete lyrics (the parts in parentheses were sung by Margie Hendricks, and the other parts were sung by Ray Charles):

(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more.)
What you say?
(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more.)

Woah Woman, oh woman, don't treat me so mean,
You're the meanest old woman that I've ever seen.
I guess if you said so
I'd have to pack my things and go. (That's right)

(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more.)
What you say?
(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more.)

Now baby, listen baby, don't ya treat me this-a way
Cause I'll be back on my feet some day.
(Don't care if you do 'cause it's understood)
(you ain't got no money you just ain't no good.)
Well, I guess if you say so
I'd have to pack my things and go. (That's right)

(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more.)
What you say?
(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.)
(Hit the road Jack and don't you come back no more.)

Well
(don't you come back no more.)
Uh, what you say?
(don't you come back no more.)
I didn't understand you
(don't you come back no more.)
You can't mean that
(don't you come back no more.)
Oh, now baby, please
(don't you come back no more.)
What you tryin' to do to me?
(don't you come back no more.)
Oh, don't treat me like that
(don't you come back no more.)

The Raelettes were the female vocalists who backed up Ray Charles and contributed to the Ray Charles sound, which often included “call and response” styling. According to Wikipedia, Ray Charles admitted that he “auditioned” his backup singers. As Ray, who was not only a musical genius but also a notorious womanizer, put it, “to be a Raelette, you’ve got to let Ray.”

So anyway, as I watched the movie this morning, I could hardly wait for Jamie to play my favorite Ray Charles song, What’d I Say.

If I had one molecule of musical talent, I would buy a piano and learn how to play the opening bars of What’d I Say. Lucky for me, I have no musical talent whatsoever, or otherwise I suspect I would just play the opening over and over until the nice gentlemen in white coats finished placing the padding in my cell.

If I were a professional writer, I would listen to the intro to What’d I Say prior to each day’s writing session. Although, from a practical standpoint, that could be a bit impractical for the times when I write in France, because they have a different kind of electricity there, so my CD player would not work. Still, I suppose I could buy a French one. But, I digress de nouveau.

Allow me to show you how this works. Pardon me, while I put my Ray soundtrack in my computer . . . and hit Track 8 and Repeat.

Ok, now I am listening to the opening of What’d I Say!

It sounds like it is being played on an electric piano. As I listen, I am getting caught in the rhythm of it, and I start thinking stream-of-consciously.

I think this is the way Jack Kerouac wrote his stream of consciousness bits in On the Road, although Jack may have been fueled by alcohol, not music. For example this excerpt from page 9, where Sal Paradise describes Dean Morarity and friends:

But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
Jack Kerouac

Or, Allen Ginsburg’s landmark 1956 poem, Howl:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night ...

Of course, as Liz Wadsworth points out, one can take only so large a dose of s-o-c writing, but is fun to indulge in, as it always surprising to see where one will go. Let’s continue, shall we? Let’s dive back into the stream . . .

Now, I am thinking about a screen door I saw yesterday on an old house in Delray Beach, and how new houses have air conditioning and no screen doors, and this could explain why one seldom hears now the expression “don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out.” For the benefit of my younger readers, I will explain that houses used to have two doors, a “regular” door and outside of it a “screen” door which allowed air to flow into the house when the regular door was opened. Screen doors had springs that retracted them after one went outside, so if one moved slowly, one could get struck by the screen door as it closed. For the benefit of my young Florida readers, I will explain that doors in the houses built outside hurricane zones open toward the inside of the house, and not toward the outside as they do in Florida. Also, the houses have coat closets inside, adjacent to the front door (I will explain “winter” later), and in the winter, the screen door became a storm door, as the screen panels were replaced by glass ones.

This reminds me of a section in my family history book, in which I wrote of a game that my brother Jim and I played with a screen door (Play Station 2 had not been invented yet, so we were left to our own devices):

Ready, little boy?

I would say, “ready, little boy?” and my brother and I would race down the short hallway from the kitchen to the screen door and back. It was exhilarating fun. We did this when we lived in the “Big House” at 585 Mueller Road, Rural Route 14, St. Louis, 23, Missouri. Jim was three years old and I was six. For some reason, Jim always called me “big boy” and I called him “little boy.” I don’t know why we weren’t on a first name basis.
One day, I was at Aunt Ruth’s house and Mom called. Jim was with her, and she asked him if he wanted to talk to Tommy. Jim said “Hello, Tommy” into the telephone receiver, and that was the end of “big boy” and “little boy.”

That was a really fun game! Another screen door game was to run down the hall as fast as one could, punch the release handle on the screen door, and see how far you could run outside before hearing the screen door slam shut. An eternal optimist at age 6, I sincerely believed I could significantly increase the distance, but I never did. I also believed back then that I could fly if only I tried hard enough, and my continued failure (still haven’t) was not due to lack of effort (I have stopped trying now). I would run around the big house, to get a good start, and then when I reached the hollow by the maple tree, I would leap off, arms straight out by my side. I was no dummy. I knew it was useless to try flapping like a bird, but if I could just get enough takeoff speed, who was to say I couldn’t glide for a bit, then maybe catch an updraft, and then who knew? Ha ha! That would impress my doubters . . .

I was always seeking ways to impress my doubters then. Not that I had any, that I knew of, but it would be fun to see the looks on their faces anyway.

Maybe this is why I am one of the few people still alive who remember when Kellogg’s came out with a brand of cereal called OK’s. Made from oats and shaped like “O’s” and “K’s”, the cereal truly lived up to its name. It was not very good, just OK, and it made it to the majors for just a cup of coffee in 1959 and 1960 before being sent back down.

Well, apparently I am not the only person still alive who remembers this breakfast cereal, as I have just used Google to find an image of the box:



The reason I remember this cereal is because of Big Otis, who was featured on the front of the box. The back of the box provided a brief bio of Big Otis, a brawny Scot who could draw upon the strength of his ancestors whenever he needed a bit more strength during battle. As I recall, he could call upon his father’s strength, then his grandfather’s, etc. and go back as far as was necessary in order to win.

I was intrigued by the concept. Dad was pretty strong, and I didn’t know about his Dad, but surely the endless chain of Shawcross men going back would be more than sufficient to meet any of my usual needs. Maybe I could finally attain the speed I needed before getting to the maple tree! Hoo ha! So, I ate the cereal. Dad got it for free anyway, so why not?

In writing this, I have just now figured out the connection between Big Otis and a cereal made from oats. Surely, OK’s was not a cereal imported from Scotland, and I remember vaguely wondering what connection there might be other than the homophonic similarity between “oats” and “Otis.”

I mentioned this connection between oats and Scots in my 19 Apr 2005 blog story “Oatmeal and Uncle Harry”:

"A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."
- Oats, as defined by Samuel Johnson in his English dictionary of 1747

“Which is why England is known for its horses and Scotland for its men."- reply issued by James Boswell, the Scottish biographer of Sam’l Johnson